A Compact Device Generates Water, Oxygen, and Fuel from Lunar Soil

Image of the moon captured by Chang’e 5 Lander in China, which gathered samples in 2020

CNSA/Xinhua/Alamy

Solar energy systems can generate water, oxygen, and fuel from lunar regolith for future settlements of lunar explorers.

It has been established that significant amounts of water are bound in the minerals of the moon. However, methods proposed for extracting resources from lunar regolith typically involve complex and energy-heavy techniques that aren’t practical for long-lasting lunar colonies.

Recently, Lu Wang and his team at the Chinese University of Hong Kong discovered that a relatively straightforward solar-powered nuclear reactor could yield useful materials simply by exposing lunar regolith to sunlight and utilizing them through astronauts.

In their experiments, the researchers utilized lunar samples obtained from China’s Chang’e 5 mission, along with simulated samples made from Earth-based rocks.

During the operation of the reactor, sunlight first extracts water from the lunar soil, and then the soil facilitates a reaction between CO₂ and water to produce carbon monoxide, oxygen, and hydrogen, which can serve as fuel.

While lunar soil contains various minerals that can aid in these reactions, a compound known as ilmenite is highlighted as a key catalyst, according to Wang.

“The mechanisms of these chemical reactions are quite fascinating and could lead to the creation of essential lunar resources,” says Haihui Joy Jiang, who was not part of the research team at the University of Sydney in Australia.

“We still need to address several questions and direct future research to determine if this process is applicable in a practical, feasible, and scalable manner on the moon,” Jiang adds.

Wang acknowledges the challenges of expanding this process to produce sufficient water, oxygen, and fuel to support a lunar colony. “The moon’s extreme environment presents unique challenges, including severe temperature variations, a high vacuum, intense solar radiation, and low gravity,” he notes. “Moreover, the variability in lunar soil and scarcity of co-resources pose considerable hurdles to technical implementation.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

AI Generates Playable Doom Game Without Coding

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An AI-generated replica scene from the computer game Doom

ID Software

Recreating classic computer games with AI Doom It's playable without any computer code or graphics, and researchers on the project say it may be possible in the future to use similar AI models to create games from scratch, in the same way that we currently create text and images.

This model Game NGenIt was compiled by Dani Walewski of Google Research and his colleagues, who declined to be interviewed. New ScientistAccording to them paper According to the study, the AI ​​can play for up to 20 seconds while retaining all the features of the original, including score, ammo levels, map layout, etc. The player can attack enemies, open doors, and interact with the environment as normal.

After this period, the model's memory begins to run out and the illusion begins to break down.

original Doom It was released in 1993 and has since become a popular subject for computer science projects. Running on specially restricted hardware Toasters, treadmills, espresso machines, etc.

But in all of these cases, the hardware is simply running the original game's code. What GameNGen does is fundamentally different: a type of AI called a neural network learns by observation how to recreate a game, without ever seeing the game's code.

The researchers first created an AI model that learned how to interact with Doom in a human-like way, then had it play the game over and over again, and then the second AI model learned how to interact with Doom in a human-like way. Stable diffusion The image generator learned how the game state changes with hundreds of millions of inputs.

The second model was essentially a copy of the game, with all of the knowledge, rules, and instructions from the original code encoded into a mysterious network of artificial neurons within its own architecture. In tests, human players were slightly better than chance at distinguishing between short clips of the game and clips of the AI ​​simulation.

In their paper, GameNGen's developers claim that this is a proof of concept that games can be created by neural networks rather than lines of code. They suggest that games can be generated from text descriptions and concept art, making them cheaper to produce than using human programmers.

Andrew Rogojski Researchers from the University of Surrey in the UK say the idea of ​​having neural networks hallucinate game environments and human interactions is an interesting step forward, but it's not meant to replace human game designers.

“I don't think it's the end of game studios. I think what game studios have is the imagination and the skill – the ability to actually create these worlds, understand gameplay, understand engagement, understand how to draw us into a story – that's not just the nuts and bolts or bits and bytes,” he says. “There's something very human about creating compelling experiences that we humans enjoy, and that's going to come primarily from other humans at the moment, and for the foreseeable future.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

OpenAI Introduces Sora, a Tool that Generates Videos from Text in Real-time Using Artificial Intelligence (AI)

OpenAI on Thursday announced a tool that can generate videos from text prompts.

The new model, called Sora after the Japanese word for “sky,” can create up to a minute of realistic footage that follows the user’s instructions for both subject matter and style. The model can also create videos based on still images or enhance existing footage with new material, according to a company blog post.



“We teach AI to understand and simulate the physical world in motion, with the goal of training models that help people solve problems that require real-world interaction.” says the blog post.

One video included among the company’s first few examples was based on the following prompt: Movie trailer featuring the adventures of a 30-year-old astronaut wearing his red woolen knitted bike in his helmet, blue sky, salt desert, cinematic style shot on 35mm film, vibrant colors .”

The company announced that it has opened up access to Sora to several researchers and video creators. According to the company’s blog post, experts have “red-teamed” the product and implemented OpenAI’s terms of service, which prohibit “extreme violence, sexual content, hateful images, likenesses of celebrities, or the IP of others.” We will test whether there is a possibility of evasion. The company only allows limited access to researchers, visual artists and filmmakers, but CEO Sam Altman took to Twitter after the announcement to answer questions from users about a video he said was created by Sola. posted. The video contains a watermark indicating that it was created by AI.



The company debuted its still image generator Dall-E in 2021 and its generated AI chatbot ChatGPT in November 2022, quickly gaining 100 million users. His other AI companies have also debuted video generation tools, but those models could only generate a few seconds of footage that had little to do with the prompt. Google and Meta said they are developing a video generation tool, although it is not publicly available. on wednesday, announced the experiment We’ve added deeper memory to ChatGPT to remember more of your users’ chats.



OpenAI told the New York Times how much footage was used to train Sora, except that the corpus includes videos that are publicly available and licensed from copyright holders. He also did not reveal the source of the training video. The company has been sued multiple times for alleged copyright infringement in training generative AI tools that digest vast amounts of material collected from the internet and mimic the images and text contained in those datasets. .

Source: www.theguardian.com

Could ChatGPT Replace Legislators? AI Generates Complex Bills in 15 Seconds

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ChatGPT may soon become ChatGOV.

Lawmakers from Porto Alegre, Brazil, used an artificial intelligence program to draft a bill that was unanimously approved by their fellow lawmakers last month.

The computer-drafted bill, introduced by 37-year-old city councilor Ramiro Rosario, says there is still a bias against incorporating AI tools into the political process.

“They are [government colleagues] If they had known, they would never have signed it,” said Rosario. told the Wall Street Journal It’s part of a “deliberately boring” bill aimed at stopping local water companies from charging residents for new meters.

Normally, drafting such a painstaking bill would take Rosario and his large staff several days, but ChatGPT produced the lengthy text in just 15 seconds.

Rosario believes this bill is the first in the world to be created entirely by an AI program.

He also predicts that ChatGPT could spell disaster for his public relations team. Case in point: The program also drafted a press release about the law.

“There should be 20 or 30 people.” [employees] In the future it will probably not be necessary,” declared the politician. “To be honest, I don’t need it anymore.”

ChatGPT also came up with legal provisions for the bill that the tech-loving Rosario wouldn’t have thought of on his own.

But other politicians are less enamored with AI.

When some of Mr. Rosario’s government colleagues learned that the bill was authored by ChatGPT, it drew scorn.

City Councilor João Bosco Bas is currently calling for the law to be repealed.

“That’s a dangerous precedent!” the detractors declared. That’s not what you do! He should have talked to other members of Congress first. ”

But Rosario is undaunted.

“They didn’t understand it,” he told Barron’s candidly.

Brazilian lawmakers aren’t the first to use ChatGPT professionally.

british judge I made a headline in September after admitting to using a “very handy” cyber tool to summarize the law.

In March, Indian judges also adopted ChatGPT. decide the fate of the criminal trial.

But experts may be overlooking potential problems with AI tools.

In a recent departmental AI instruction manual, New York City government explains Such technology has the potential for “misuse, flawed design,” as well as “serious bias” and “active harm.”

Experts in the field are deeply concerned about the “fundamental flaw” in the programmed left-leaning bias that ChatGPT uses to derive its answers. Researchers have previously found that they are also more tolerant of hate speech against Republicans and men.

This tool has been used to censor press freedom before. Last February, the show refused to write a New York Post-style article because it was “inflammatory.”

ChatGPT was not held to the same standards when asked to do the same in the style of CNN.

Using ChatGPT involves legal risks. MT.Photostock – Stock.adobe.com Political plans aside, ChatGPT also faces long-term technical issues that will become very clear in legislative matters.

Language learning models (LLMs) have a very hard time creating quotes and often create fake quotes. This can and has already caused problems in court when referring to previous legal cases.

In June, a New York City lawyer profusely apologized to a federal judge after ChatGPT “deceived” him by creating a false precedent for his lawsuit. This is because there is no live feed of updates coming into the program, so the program is basing its responses solely on training data for the day.

Experts warn of built-in bias within ChatGPT. AP

In other words, ChatGPT is not connected to the Internet. that Method.

It’s also worth noting that, similar to Brazil’s controversial Rosario bill, a prominent AI program also believed the US Constitution was drafted by a computer.

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Source: nypost.com